Bill's Locker

The commercials show basketball players giving of themselves to the community.

Bravo!

But what they don’t show are the true children who take their ball, ballclub that is, and leave as soon as the opportunity strikes them.

David Stern, you are the schrewd cookie in all of this.

As NBA Commissioner, you allowed the New Orleans Hornets, yes I said New Orleans, to play part of their season in Oklahoma City to see how the league would be received and give Clay Bennett and his buds the chance to see how valuable a team on the rocks would be.

Enter the Seattle Sonics or Super Sonics as I remember playing as a kids with Gus Williams, Jack Sikma, and I believe Dennis Johnson, but that series with the Washington Bulletts was a long time ago.

Heck the Washington Bulletts was a long time ago with Wes Unsel.

Those kids I hated to play ball against, the ones who would take their ball, bat, or whatever and leave when things didn’t go their way have all grown up.

They have become owners of teams like the New Orleans Hornets, Utah Jazz, Indianapolis Colts, Baltimore Ravens, Tennessee Titans, Washington Nationals, and the soon the be Oklahoma City Drillers or what ever name they come up with.

Some one please hand me the air sick bag.

I am not trying to set a record for the number of blogs in a day, but something just hit me and very close to home.

I just learned about the death of drag racer Scott Kalitta.

As a gear head and reporter, I have lost some people I have met in the racing circles to the sport we all share.

There was Blaise Alexander who died in a wreck at Charlotte the week I was going to get married, the crash I watched on TV that took the life of Dale Earnhardt who I had the honor to interview more than once, and unfortunately there are some other drivers who I can add to this list.

Racing is one of the most dangerous careers you can have along with coal mining, being a pilot, and being the person who tries to eat what I cook.

Unfortunately reality raises it head and reminds us that all of us are human and at anytime it can end.

Scott, you were a racer, and went out doing what you loved.

As a person who is passionate about what I do, I hope I can be just as fortuante.

The person I always hated playing ball against was the kid in the neighborhood who thought he was the next best thing since sliced bread.

You remember the kid.

Each season he had a new pair of cleats, new glove, and the best bat money and technology could buy.

He was also the brat who would cry and take his ball and go home when things didn’t go his way.

That was the 1970’s for me…let’s turn the hands of time to now.

Enter the latest realm for that brat…Federal Court.

Justin Gatlin and other athletes like him think an injunction is the way to make the game go their way.

Sorry, but all it does is earn you another record in how fast you can turn an event into a battle of legalese and make the sporting world look dumber that it did when it went arawy.

The laws of the sporting land have ruled. And we wonder why instant replay is worse than instant grits and instant Gatorade.

Justin if you win this one, there is still hope for us who want sweet tea as the next flavor of Gatorade in the south.

Any sports fan will remember the voices of the game.

The Cawood Leadford’s, Howard Cosell’s, Harry Caray’s, Jack Brickhouse’s, Jim McKay’s and the list goes on and unfortunately so do the great voices of the game.

We, as sports fans, lost Jim McKay.

He took us through the uncertainty of the 1972 Munich Games and the first time most of us heard about terrorism on a world wide scale, A.J. Foyt’s four Indy wins, and better yet brought a wide world of sports into our homes through a television set.

The biggest thing he did for me was call the home stretch run of big red for this old Kentucky boy.

Today we don’t have voices like this, but characters who feel they must entertain us more than they inform.

My generation has lost another legend who entertained us for a long time.

The old school salute you Jim and remember what you did for us during our innocence and childhood.

The news out of New York was a new 100-meter dash record.

Usain Bolt set a new mark on Saturday at 9.72 seconds at the Reebok Grand Prix, but that news didn’t rock the world like it did when Justin Gatlin set his mark in 2004 or the mark Bolt beat held by fellow countryman Asafa Powell by .02 seconds.

What once would garner big news is now not even good enough to wrap fish in.

Why are we so tained? The word is tained!

With the Ben Johnsons, Justin Gatlins, and Marion Jones of the world failing drug test and bringing shame to a sport that once garnered headlines.

Even in an Olympic year the headlines aren’t there as they have been in the past and that is because America isn’t worried about who will win and represent us well, but who will actually pass the drug test.

About the only thing these athletes haven’t tried yet is just going ahead and strapping a rocket to their backside.

But if they did that at least the whole would would know they were actually cheating instead of left being to wonder if they could pass the test after crossing the finish line.

The Celtics and the Lakers!

David Stern got his Christmas wish as the media is now conjuring up the ghosts of Bill Russell against Wilt Chamberlain and Larry Legend against Magic Johnson.

Unfortunately the fans of basketball will be greatly disappointed if we expect to see a series like we did involving these basketball greats.

Why?

Today’s pro game is more coregraphed than the Arthur Murray School of Dance or one of those movies featuring Fred Astare and Ginger Rogers.

By the end of this best of seven series will see the Lakers and Celtics account for 31 of the 62 NBA Titles.

But that isn’t the problem with the NBA, it is the quality of the game.

Basketball is offense and defense; all action all the time. These overpaid kids, some of which didn’t even go to college, are not helping the game, they are crippling a game that at one time was a great thing to watch.

Now you can tune in the last three minutes and see more action than you do the entire game.

Commissioner Stern you might have saved the game, but in the process you lost control and the product now stinks.

The highest payroll in baseball is sitting in the basement of the American League East, while one of the lowest payrolls is first in the National League East.

Ironically both teams have one major thing in common, and that is Coach Joe Girardi.

The 2006 National League Manager of the Year took the lowest payroll in baseball to the playoffs, yet the highest payroll in 2008 is as close to rock bottom as you can get.

Most of us couldn’t name a Florida Marlin, but you can count the Yankees such as Derek Jeter, A-Rod, Mike Mussina, Jorge Pasada, Jose Molina, Bobby Abreu, Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui, and that is several million dollars alone.

Unfortunately the Yankees won’t fire the players, but they will a manager.

This makes you realize when it comes to pro sports the idiots are running the team instead of the managers.

What makes May special is the Kentucky Derby and the Indy 500, but before Jim Nabors or whoever sings “Back Home in Indiana” with visions of the Mighty Walbash you have to survive bump day.

In what seems like a month of perperation it usually comes down to the last hour of qualifying before the final field of 33 drivers are set.

Sunday was no different as I could hear Jim McKay’s intro to the former ABC Wide World of Sports concerning the “Thrill of Victory” as former Indy winner Buddy Lazier’s bonzi run put him in the middle of the 11th row at just over 219 miles per hour.

But McKay would follow that line with the “Agony of Defeat”, which was witnessed as Roger Yasukawa failed to get back in the field by a mere .04 seconds over a four lap run.

Then there was Max Papis who broke a gear box as he pulled out to start his last ditch effort to qualify, while his family, which includes Emmerson Fittapaldi, make their way to Indy for the Memorial Day weekend.

Finally Mario Dominquez trimmed out his rear wing and went for it. Lap one he was looking good at over 219.5 miles per hour, but lap two was not as smooth for the Mexican as his car swaped ends and backed into the outer wall to dash his hopes of making the field and anyone elses chances of qualifying.

All of this transpired in less than 30 minutes, yet there was more excitement and emotion than all the soap operas could wrap into a season combined.

Don’t get me wrong, I am looking forward to my racing holiday of the Indy 500 which will then be followed by the Coke 600. Yes my wife will be a 1,100 mile widow Sunday.

But those 1,100 miles will do nothing to top the 30 minutes I watched on Sunday as I relived my childhood with the voice of Jim McKay in the background.

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals are preparing to protest the Preakness at Pimlico, which for you non horse racing enthusists is the second leg of the Triple Crown.

They have the right to protest, but I find it hard to believe them despite their ill feelings over the untimely demise of Eight Belles.

Why are they hard to believe?

Would you believe an organization which once promoted college students should drink beer instead of milk, because milking the cow was cruel to the cow.

Or how about the push to stop fishing as we know it, because hooking or catching the fish is cruel to the fish.

I guess Jesus and I will meet in purgatory for such an evil act if PETA had their way about it.

PETA, with your past history, I find you as believeable as Osama Bin Laden being a friend of the United States.

Despite being a fan of the ponies, I was upset until you got involved in the matter.

Then I realized by ill feelings for horse racing was about as useless as your organizations existance.

I always heard how bad it would be if the inmates ran the prison, well welcome to the world of the NCAA.

This one body, who governs and oversees college sports, is actually ran by the univeristy presidents and athletic directors. These are the same people who don’t want a football playoff because what it would do to the university’s bottom line or hand down justice equally.

Several colleges like Southern Methodist University, University of Alabama, and other select schools have felt the wrath of the NCAA, while schools like Univeristy of Southern California and others can get away with cart blanche.

USC had Reggie Bush in football and O.J. Mayo in basketball, buy nothing has happened as of yet even though Mayo is a new subject.

The only way the NCAA is going to get any respect is if they get off their broken down hobby horse and join the rest of the world in reality. Treat all the universities and colleges the same or better yet let anrchey rule.

I beg your pardon, for the NCAA that is business as usual.